LG bolsters real estate team with hires from Herbies and Linklaters

Linklaters partners Huw Baker and Julian Innes-Taylor and Herbert Smith partner Clare Fielding are all set to join LG as partners in the coming months.

Baker, who was formerly head of real estate construction at Linklaters, specialises in non-contentious construction and project work on transactions, and has experience with procurement issues. Before joining Linklaters he was at Pinsent Masons legacy firm Masons, where he led the national procurement practice.

Innes-Taylor has been at Linklaters since 1986, making partner in 1995, and focuses on the acquisition, funding, development, letting and disposal of all types of commercial real estate.

Planning expert Fielding made partner at Herbert Smith in 2008 and advises developers and public authorities on all aspects of planning law, highway law and compulsory purchases. In 2011 she advised EDF Energy on its planning application to the Infrastructure Planning Commission as it sought consent to build a power station in Hinkley Point (28 November 2011).

Earlier this week Linklaters lost another real estate partner, Joe Conder, to Goodwin Procter (14 May 2012).

Linklaters has affirmed its commitment to the real estate sector, though sources had indicated to The Lawyer that the practice was one of the hardest hit by its partnership restructuring (5 March 2012).

Herbert Smith, too, has recently admitted plans to cut up to 51 staff in London, with corporate expected to be the hardest hit department, followed by real estate (30 April 2012).